June 23, 2004

Twin Killing

Another one of those games that has you wailing at the television like Nancy Kerrigan after Tonya Harding's beefy boyfriend suckered her with a crowbar: "Whyyyyyy....Whyyyyyyy....Whyyy meee???"

Derek Lowe is becoming known around my household as Derek F. Lowe. He pitched ok tonight, but that first inning had me putting claw marks into the upholstery. "Throw a strike, Derek," I'd tell him through gritted teeth. He'd promptly throw a ball. Or go me one better and give up a base hit.

Oh, and speaking of that first inning, my kingdom for a successfully turned double play.

One was turned--in fact, two were turned--later. Unfortunately the twin twin killings were performed by the Twins and not the Sox, which gives you a nice little numerological conundrum to ponder if you're a complete idiot like Bob Tewksbury, in which case you are not only content to think about that, but will mention it the moment the post-game broadcast starts.

Not that I'm bitter.

I hate the Red Sox right now. Oooh, God, I hate them so. much.

If you're out there in RSN, you know exactly this hatred. A good shrink will tell you it's really just internal frustration manifested outwards as resentment, or in the form of projectiles hucked at the televised image of Kevin Millar.

But I hate them. I really do. I hate their stupid pop-ups. I hate their stupid runners left on base. I hate the fact that behind Schilling, who comes with a guarantee of a two-run ERA per home game, they score nine runs, but behind Lowe, who is the most bitch-slappable athlete I've ever seen, by the way, they score a measly, lousy, stupid two.

Two. Two double plays. Two runs. It was the night of Twins.

Shut up, Tewksbury.

Oh, and just to add to our freakin' joy, Pokey Reese made a diving stop on a ground ball up the middle, and apparently caught all his body weight (which luckily is not all that considerable) on his left thumb, and then proceeded to kind of grind it into the ground and twist it and fall on it and slide around on it for a while. Following the change of inning, Bellhorn took over at second base and Youkilis at third, and the three most frightening words a Red Sox fan could ever hear crossed the lips of Jerry Remy:

NOOOOOOOMAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I'll say this much for the 2004 edition of the Olde Towne Team: They don't do things half-assed. When they lose, they lose in stellar, sock-to-the-gut fashion, with stupendous base running gaffs, boatloads of stranded runners, balls lost in the sun, and Kevin Millar invariably doing something ugly, prompting you to shake your fist at the sky and declare, "That Kevin Millar! He is good for nothing! Nothing, I say!"

But when they win, it is thunderous. Baseballs screaming into the void far above the Monster. Men flying without wires. Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star.--Surviving Grady

And then there was this moment:

Steve and I are knee-deep in apartment-related detritus in my room at my parents' house. I'm frantically trying to sort through a literal mountain of my own random possessions; he's being a dear and taking bags full of trash and paper to be recycled and boxes full of books back and forth for me, furthering his campaign for canonization.

My boyfriend is a saint. Really.

He is also putting up with my listening to the Sox game while doing aforementioned drudge work. "It's not going to make you any happier," he warns. But I insist.

So it is around 8:30, maybe more towards 9, Thursday June 22, 2004, when we hear "Swing and a long fly ball deep to left field..." from Joe Castiglione with Nomar at the plate. Then, in the middle of the ball's flight, Castiglione seems to catch on suddenly to what is about to happen. He only manages to squeeze in one "Way back!!!" in a tone of excitement that gives me goose bumps before he hollers at the top of his voice, "That ball is GONE!!"

Then, choked with emotion, he yells over and over, "A GRAND SLAM FOR NOMAR GAR!!--CIAPARRA!!"

Trot Nixon bats next, but the crowd will not sit until Nomar gives them a curtain call. Prodded by his teammates, he does. Poor Trot is left in the dust, fans-wise, then robbed of a homer of his own when the right fielder reaches back into the right field bullpen for the ball. Without the benefit of a televised image, I wonder if said right fielder pops his gum Trot-style as he throws the ball back toward the infield.

In any event, with Manny, Ortiz and most importantly Nomar going yahhd last night, the Sox come out on top behind the Hoss 9-2.

June 22, 2004

I Dream of Barry

So Gammons, or as his sycophants refer to him, GAMMONS!!! is reporting that:

Royals GM Allard Baird says there are four teams currently in the Beltran hunt, with the A's, Red Sox and Yankees three of the four (could the Marlins be the fourth?). Baird and Beane worked on the three-way trade that would have included the Dodgers, then spent the weekend working with Theo Epstein on a three-way deal that in the Red Sox's world would have sent Beltran to Boston, Kevin Youkilis and Scott Williamson to Oakland and A's third baseman Mark Teahan (Kansas City's favorite), Red Sox catcher Kelly Shoppach and Oakland pitcher Mike Wood to Kansas City.

But the A's are not convinced that Williamson is their answer at closer, and Youkilis would eventually have to be moved once franchise player and Gold Glove winner Eric Chavez returns in a month from a broken right hand. Every team Oakland talks to wants reliever Jairo Garcia, who throws 97 to 98 mph and at Class A Kane County has 16 saves, has allowed one earned run and has a 49/6 strikeout/walk ratio in 30 innings. Boston may be able to pull off a trade for Beltran, but Epstein will have to come up with some new parts in order to do so.

While the Red Sox think about putting Beltran in right field and having Manny Ramirez and Trot Nixon switch between left field and DH, Oakland has a lot of decisions to make in the near future.

To which I say, no, no, no, no, NO!!!

We need pitching. PITCHING PITCHING PITCHING PITCHING. We can't keep Arroyo in that fifth spot the way he's been playing--he's had a few tough breaks but is still unreliable. Wake continues to need long relief. D.Lowe seems to be righting the ship, but Lord knows how long that would last. And let's not forget the Hoss, whose ankle continues to give us the shakes, or Petey, who continues to be Dr. Pedro and Mr. Martinez.

What are we going to do with another outfielder? It'd be nice to make up for Manny's defensive mediocrity, but then what do you do with Ortiz? Play him at first? Then what do you do with Millar?

Oh, wait. I get it now.

Okay, I can see that. But should we really give up our hot catching prospect with our All-Star catcher a free agent at the end of this season? Are we really going to hand over Youkilis to Oakland after the way Billy Beane has so famously salivated over him?

As elephantsinoakland puts it, "Why arm your enemy so soon to battle?" After all, Oakland is going to be a strong contender for and during the playoffs, and remember what happened last year--should these teams really cooperate? What happens when one or the other ends up getting the short end of the stick--and having it bite them directly in the butt in the postseason?

In the end, though, for me the biggest problem isn't how Beltran might or might not benefit us, or giving up Shoppach or Youkilis, but giving up Scott Williamson. That's right, he of "Timlin in the Eighth, Williamson in the Ninth," our rock and our salvation in last year's playoffs, is going to be cast off? For more offense "on paper"? We have all the offense we need "on paper". We need to kick the butts into gear of the offense we have (and not, ahem, sit them against other teams' aces) instead of giving up pitching.

I also don't think we should give up the reliever that makes our bullpen work. I know we have Foulke now, but you can't use him every day. Williamson works beautifully as kind of an off-day closer, if we're behind but still should be kept in the game, or a setup man for Foulke if we use Timlin and / or Embree for early relief (of course, Francona should probably also stop using Timlin and Embree for one batter apiece and then going to DiNardo).

If we were giving up Williamson in the Ninth for Barry, or Garcia, it would shore up our rotation in a way it badly needs despite all offseason predictions. It would add another bat to the Yankees' lineup, since they'd probably get Beltran as a consolation prize, but if we really want to cramp their style, we need to keep them from getting the pitching they are desperate for.

In Theo we trust? Maybe. But if he and Steinbrenner are engaging in stupid spite trades regardless of how a given player would actually help their team, things will be Not Good. Or maybe we simply haven't seen the big picture yet. Or maybe we're being led astray by rumor.

Meanwhile, The Hoss himself goes against the team my family (some of whom hail from the Land of 10,000 Lakes) has always referred to as the "Twinkies" tonight. Let's hope those "Homer Hankies" aren't waving...

June 21, 2004

Old Axioms

During my lunch break from work today, I was waiting at an intersection for a traffic cop to wave me forward when Dale and Numie announced that there was a very special guest on the show--newly re-signed Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi.

"TEDY!!!!!!!!!" I hollered from the driver's seat, loud enough to startle the traffic cop.

Then I realized I had yet to dedicate any space on this blog to New England's finest athlete.

I also realize that it is inviting controversy to select Tedy Bruschi as my favorite New England active athlete, but hear me out. First, I follow sports stars based on a murky combination of their abilities on the field and the overall tone they have as people and performers. As a former musician, I think I judge even football players not according to how often they field passes or make tackles but how they do it.

Sports in general, to me, is not about winning. I don't know if this is because I am female, or artistically inclined, or that I have a penchant for a really good, soul-deep, heartbreaking story regardless of the outcome, but the famous Vince Lombardi attitude that winning is the only thing is pretty much the antithesis of my mindset.

I'm not going to say winning isn't important. I wouldn't give back those two Patriots Super Bowls, and I'd give up just about anything to see the Red Sox win the World Series. But is it the only thing? If it is, then you should get a kick out of watching just any old team take the field and win. And there are some who do. But the vast majority of us have a team we call ours, and for a reason.

My reason is that the joy I get from watching athletes is similar to the joy I get from watching any other kind of performers in a drama. It's not about how well or how often but how. How off-the-field character fuels the performance. How historic feuds and matchups alter it. How each player plays his part like an instrument in an orchestra, a dancer in a corps de ballet, a color on a canvas.

And Tedy is the best. Tedy is everything.

He's not Ray Lewis. He's not Tom Brady. It sounds cliche, but he doesn't want that kind of attention. He doesn't seem to want all the money in the world, either, having just inked a contract with the Patriots that defines "hometown discount."

Today on the radio, he told Dale and Numie, "I've helped build something here. [Staying in New England] is a quality of life issue for me."

He didn't say any of those trite sound bites about the fans, though, either, though he still gushes about the "snow confetti" during a game against the Miami Dolphins last season. He didn't wax verbose about the coaches or offer any of the inarticulate, meaningless verbal diarrhea we're used to from athletes. It's about him, make no mistake. But it's not about how much.

It's about how.

How he plays--like a rabid animal. I'll never forget seeing his face on the jumbo-tron during a cold game in December, where his breath on the cold air made him look like he was breathing fire.

How he thinks--which is brilliantly and lightning-fast on the field. Every down, every play, every pass, every run, when the dust settles and the pile clears, look for No. 54 and you'll know where the ball ended up. That's why the sign hung out at the stadium for him says "FULL TILT, FULL TIME".

How he acts--he's the one who leads the "Awwwwwww YEAH!" cheer the team does in the locker room. He's the one who gracefully forbears members of the press and public on every last occasion--be it a request for an interview or a hug. He's the one who signed an autograph on a random piece of paper for my boyfriend while trying to spend time with his son at a bookstore because my boyfriend told him that "my girlfriend will castrate me if I don't get you to sign something." He's the one whose picture in the Globe commemorative book about the 2003 Patriots does not feature him wrapped around a quarterback or locked in on a pass, but roughousing gently with his little boy on the field.

Most importantly, with Tedy it comes down to a single mystery: How he can possibly separate the wild hyena on the field, whose bright red shoes frequently leave the ground to deliver a devastating hit or pick off a pass for a game-winning interception and touchdown, from the gentle guy with the blow-dried 'do who is most often seen with his tiny blonde toddler in his arms off the field.

So is he Ray Lewis? Is he Tom Brady? Is he Pedro Martinez?

No. He's better.

Meanwhile, Tedy's appearance on the radio today took some of the sting out of the past weekend for the Sox, which was probably the most frustrating of the season so far:

Interesting strategy to bench your best hitter, Manny Ramirez, against the National League's most dominating righthander, Jason Schmidt, in order to give him two days off in a row. Ramirez hadn't gotten a breather, manager Terry Francona said, since the day he flew American and became a US citizen. Just a guess here, but if it was incumbent for Everyday Manny to get an extended hiatus, many Sox fans would have voted that Francona give him tomorrow night off at home against struggling righthander Kyle Lohse (2-4, 5.38 ERA) of the Twins rather than against Schmidt, who yesterday pitched his second one-hitter in barely a month for the San Francisco Giants to close out the Sox, 4-0, at SBC Park. (Edes, Globe)

And, in other good news, I officially have a crush on Barry Zito after reading a Sports Illustrated piece on him this week.

First of all, he is just adorable:

When he's not playing guitar Zito is often reading (Walden and Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, recently). Though he owns a high-definition TV, it's used almost exclusively for viewing DVDs. He doesn't have cable or satellite service, which keeps him from catching up on his favorite show, SpongeBob SquarePants. "He watches it with my seven-year-old daughter -- at least, that's his excuse," laughs Bonnie Zito, his older sister by 13 years. "It's hard for me to think of him as a man; I mean, I still buy him toys as presents."

Yet for all his childlike verve, Zito, at his core, exudes the serenity of a man comfortable with his philosophical base. "I tell him he has an old soul," says Kathy Jacobson, Zito's publicist, "because he seems to have so many life lessons all figured out, like he's been here before." Among the subjects to which Zito has had to devote some thought is the heaviest one of all. "Everyone focuses on the earthly state, but how cool might death be," Zito says. "I believe in spiritual rebirth, and I can't wait to experience that."

Secondly, though he has been slumping lately, he appears to be approaching a Buddha state mentally, and many of the old axioms he holds dear dovetail nicely with some of our own this season with regard to positive thinking:

When things aren't going well on the mound, thoughts creep into Zito's head -- What if the batter's waiting on a changeup? What if he hits it out? -- that make him more tentative and less self-assured. It's the reason he can say with a straight face, "I wish I were a robot. It would be great to just be able to ignore everything and pitch to a spot, to suppress the intellect and let intuition take over. But we all bring the past into the present, and objectivity is the first thing that goes when you're struggling. Go to any Class A game and you'll see guys who have nastier stuff than Roger Clemens, but they never make it out because they second-guess themselves.

"There's something to be said for the 'dumb jock,' because his intelligence doesn't get in the way," Zito continues. "I think I'm aware of what goes on in my mind more than some guys, and for that reason I fight more battles. It's weird, because I don't have that problem outside of baseball. I kind of lie back and let life come to me."

Maybe what he needs for his ailing ERA is a change of scene. And as another old axiom goes, you can never have too much pitching. Already rumors are afloat that the Sox and Yankees are both pursuing Seattle's Freddy Garcia, but why not go after a lefty (they help in Yankee Stadium!) who three years ago went 11-1 with a 1.32 ERA--and if you believe the SI story, did it by force of will alone?

Who better to break a curse than a guy who also watched his mother beat cancer through positive visualization--twice?

June 20, 2004

Priceless

Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: The hair inspiration for Pedro this season?

Decent 1-bedroom apartment in Lowell, MA: $675 / mo. plus utilities.
New queen-size pillow-top bed from Jordan's furniture: $763.00
New solid oak bookshelf headboard to go with new bed: $237.00
New bedding for new bed: $122.96
Furniture for rest of apartment: $0 (got from parents and grandparents)
Digital cable and broadband internet package for new apartment: $100 a month.
Barry Bonds throwing up 0-fers, and FINALLY moving out of my parents' house in the same weekend: PRICELESS.

So you'll forgive me, I hope, if I haven't been following the Sox as closely as usual. I have been catching news stories in the Globe and elsewhere, including and especially on the blog network.

When [Pedro's] got two strikes on someone, I keep expecting him to go into that Biblical rant of Samuel L. Jackson's in Pulp Fiction, the one just before he executes someone.

Brian

BriVT • 209.198.102.126 • 06/19/04 07:29am

dude. AWESOME.

*high fives brian*

beth • 65.215.21.209 • 06/19/04 07:51am

I can see Pedro breaking out the Ezekiel 25:17:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

To continue the Pulp Fiction reference---
[Barry Bonds goes up to the batter's box as Pedro starts staring him down]
Barry: What're you looking at, friend?
Pedro: I ain't your friend, palooka.
Barry: What did you say?
Pedro: I think you heard me just fine, punchy. (Pedro includes hand gestures to illustrate his point.)

[Veritek comes out for a visit to the mound to settle Pedro early in the game. Tek stands silently in front of Pedro with their gloves over their mouths.]
Tek: Don't you hate that?
Pedro: What?
Tek: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
Pedro: I don't know. That's a good question.
Tek: That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.
[Ump comes out and tells them to wrap it up and play ball]

Posada: I got a threshold, Pedro. I got a threshold for the abuse I'll take. And right now I'm a race car and you got me in the red. I'm just saying that it's fuckin' dangerous to have a racecar in the fuckin' red. It could blow.
Pedro: Oh, you're gettin' ready to blow?
Posada: I could blow.
Pedro: Well I'm a mushroom-cloud-layin' motherfucker, motherfucker! Every time my pitches touch brain I'm "SUPERFLY T.N.T", I'm the "GUNS OF THE NAVARONE". In fact, what the fuck am I doin' on the mound talking to you?"

June 18, 2004

Pitch to Barry

So we go now to San Francisco to face Barry Bonds and a bunch of other guys who all wear the same uniform as Barry Bonds, and that's pretty much all you know about them.

It's kind of sad. Other teams, you know more about in general because there isn't some kind of mega-superstar looming over the whole group of players. In San Francisco, however, there appears to be Barry, and not-Barry, and never the twain shall meet.

Things are jumping out in Frisco:

You could have purchased a pair of lower box seats for $58 to watch the Giants play the Toronto Blue Jays in a sun-washed game Thursday. The same seats are being offered tonight for $715 a pair on the Giants' "Double Play" Web site, where the team's season-ticket owners can unload their holdings.

What's the difference? The Blue Jays are not the Boston Red Sox and never will be. The Blue Jays and the Tampa Bays of the world are among what former Boston Globe political writer Martin Nolan calls "the 20 to 25 baseball teams nobody cares about.'' The Red Sox are up there in the elite: the Cardinals, the Cubs, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Giants.

They come with a mystique. In New England, following the Red Sox is almost a religion, almost a literary event, almost a Greek tragedy.

Thousands of expatriate Bostonians live in the Bay Area. Add to that the rarity of the meeting. Because the Giants and the Red Sox are in different leagues, they have not met in a game that counted since the World Series in 1912, the year the Titanic sank. It's like a taste test between very old bourbon and single-malt scotch.--(SFGate.com)

Bonds, whose knowledge of baseball history had him humorously mocking a visitor stumbling to draw comparisons between Williams's feats with the Red Sox and those of the 39-year-old Giants slugger, said Boston is a place he would never call home.

"Boston is too racist for me,'' he said. "I couldn't play there.''

It is a judgment, he acknowledges, not derived of firsthand experience -- he missed the 1999 All-Star Game, played in Boston, because of an injury -- but on word-of-mouth.

"Only what guys have said," he said, "but that's been going on ever since my dad [Bobby] was playing baseball. I can't play like that. That's not for me, brother."

When it was suggested the racial climate has changed in Boston, Bonds demurred.

"It ain't changing," he said. "It ain't changing nowhere."

They built a tunnel to honor Ted Williams in Boston. What did he imagine would be built for him?

[U]nlike other athletes unwilling to offer opinions that deviate from the politically correct, Bonds professes not to care about the consequences of his remarks. To remind him, when he says that he will not be honored like Williams was, that outside of SBC Park, there is a statue of his godfather, is only to invite a derisive counterpoint.

"I live in the real world, brother. That's all. I do the best I can in the real world. I ain't mad at it, but it's still the real world."

It's pretty disingenuous of Barry to say he isn't mad at what he terms "the real world" when he speaks so strongly about it, but any truly educated objection to what he's said pretty much ends there.

If you don't know Boston's racist history, you have some reading to do.

Here's a start:

The history goes back to before baseball was integrated. Oddly enough, the Red Sox held a tryout at Fenway Park for Jackie Robinson in April 1945. But with only management in the stands, someone yelled "Get those niggers off the field," according to a reporter who was there that day. Two years later, Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black player of the 20th century to play in the major leagues.

In 1949, the Red Sox gave up the chance to sign future Hall of Famer Willie Mays, who would go on to hit more career home runs than all but one man before him and electrify crowds with his defensive play. As Juan Williams reports, "one of the team's scouts decided that it wasn't worth waiting through a stretch of rainy weather to scout any black player. That decision killed the possibility that Mays and Ted Williams might have played in the same outfield for the Red Sox." (NPR: "The Boston Red Sox and Racism")

Of course, it's not exactly fair for the sins of the fathers (the previous generations of owners and fans) to be visited on the current inhabitants of Fenway Park. But is the continued resentment understandable? Absolutely. And here's more news for you: Barry's not the only black ballplayer to harbor such an opinion of Boston.

So while the reaction in Beantown grows shriller by the second, I propose we simply calm down and face it: face the legacy of racial insult that has been called "the real curse".

Don't believe me? Well, you're entitled to your opinion (as is Barry Bonds, by the way). But for what it's worth, I'm in good company:

"For the Red Sox it didn't change until Dan Duquette took over in 1994," Bryant says. "And then you started to see some successes. Things began to change. The combination of Duquette and Mo Vaughn - their contributions began to push race a little further back. I think that their contributions allowed a little hope to exist."

Hope, of course, is a cronic condition for Red Sox fans. But that's the price of history, according to Bryant.

"To have us talk about these other issues - not just today, but yesterday and the other day and 50 years ago and tomorrow - is the real price that the Red Sox have paid. And that's what they have to overcome."

Eighty-four years without a World Championship - and counting. (Greater Boston)

You want to reverse that curse? We have to be brave enough to name it first.

I move that they make commercials featuring Pokey Reese. I don't care what product it's for. My pitch for a commercial would be like this: Pokey rolls groggily out of bed, and from there goes on to make a series of jaw-dropping, acrobatic moves (possibly with the aid of computer graphics) while going about his day to day business. Such as, yawning, pouring coffee behind his back without spilling a drop, one-handing a thrown newspaper on his front stoop without looking, jumping clean over a construction site in his way while walking down the street to the store, catching a fly between his thumb and forefinger, again, without looking, as he eats a sandwich, perhaps finishing by effortlessly fielding the entire contents of a bag of groceries as they're thrown upward by someone tripping and falling...you know, stuff like that.

Where is Madison Avenue on this?

But, of course, we are Boston Red Sox fans and we cannot be entirely happy. And so it is incumbent upon me to step into the bullshit tornado that has become The Nomar Garciaparra Saga.

If things keep going this way, next year you're going to read a story in the newspaper that goes a little something like this:

BOSTON--Fenway fans have long had a harsh vocal response to former Boston Red Sox that show up at the old ballyard in pinstripes following their Boston careers.

But though Nomar Garciaparra has joined a long line of players--from the Babe to Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens--who have made the switch to the Dark Side, the Fenway faithful had to dig deep for an appropriate response as Garciaparra, the erstwhile toast of Boston at shortstop, made his first appearance on his old turf at second base for the Evil Empire.

Where before a simple "boo" would do, last night witnessed something astonishing: nearly the entire capacity crowd of 35,000 standing and turning their backs to the field while keeping a stony silence.

"There aren't any words to express what we're feeling," said die-hard fan Sully MacDonald, from his bird's eye view in the Monster Seats. He glanced back furtively over his shoulder toward the field, where the pinstriped No. 5 settled in for what would become a 5-0 Yankees rout over the dispirited Olde Towne Team.

"No words."

At a press conference following the game, Garciaparra, flanked by his fellow shortstop-turned-Yankee-baseman Alex Rodriguez, told the press he felt much the same way.

"Boston fans always treated me incredibly well," said Garciaparra, who has admitted he is "bitter" about the way he parted ways with the Sox, "I don't understand this. Well, I guess I do, in a way. I think the fans got [expletive] over at least as much as I did. But still, I never expected that kind of reaction. What can you say?"

You don't want to live that nightmare? Then stop throwing him under the bus for being injured, for rehabbing, and for being rusty after being injured and rehabbing. Stop suggesting with a straight face that Mark Bellhorn and Pokey Reese should usurp his spot after just fifty-seven decent games, fifty-seven games, I might remind you, in which every batting and baserunning gaffe was rationalized as being due to Nomar's absence.

It's that simple. The current hubbub surrounding his state of mind and Achilles is only going to drive him straight into the arms of Steinbrenner, who I can tell you right now is salivating at the prospect.

As Sully or Murph would tell you from the box seats behind home plate, while gesturing passionately with their cups of beer, I shit you not, kid. You mahk my words.

June 16, 2004

The Mountains Win Again

Ooh can you feel the same
Ooh you gotta love the pain
Ooh it looks like rain again
Ooh I feel it comin' in
The mountains win again
The mountains win again --Blues Traveler

I can only imagine what Angry Bill is saying in his little apartment, somewhere in Boston right now.

Well, the good news is I'm feeling better physically. The bad news is, I now feel like shit because of the Red Sox.

The more I watch them struggle, the more I appreciate last season. Technically, I deserted between the mid-'90's, and last year, they called me back. Not sure why, really, and I don't hold it against myself that I left the bandwagon for all those years, because it's like Ed says: you don't choose the Red Sox, they choose you. How true that is. What motivation do I have, really, to watch them right now? To root for them? That "Cowboy Up" team is gone, as tonight's baserunning gaffes, pathetic offensive output, and heavy strikeouts against one of the worst teams in the league clearly demonstrate.

In fact, at times I even allow myself the thought: this is not The Year.

It's not for lack of trying. But hey, maybe here as everywhere, the weight of history is too much for the Sox. Think about the memorable years in Sox history: 1967, 1975, 1978, 1986, 1999, 2003. What do you remember about 1968, 1976, 1979, 1987 or 2000? (No fair answering this question if you are Glenn Stout.)

You get me?

So here we are, June 16, 2004, and in the rarified air of Denver, the Sox are heading into a tailspin. Manny striking out. Ortiz grounding out. Nomar making dives that miss and throwing errors to first base. If I slap my forehead any more, I'm going to get a concussion.

Through it all, there's a creeping sense of total panic, and the knowledge that the Yankees are disappearing over the horizon. If this continues, things will be grim in Beantown, at least till football season starts. Especially grim given that this year's stocked Sox were meant to cure the hangover from last season.

Of course, there's no guarantee that it will continue. They could go on a ten-game winning streak tomorrow. That's what makes watching the Sox more addictive than playing the slots--and just as potentially psychologically damaging.

Through it all, the biggest question is, why? Why do I fear the season derailing so deeply? Why does it fel as though my life, or at least my enjoyment of it, depends on the Red Sox winning?

Statcounter C2F

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